muddlewait.bsky.social

They only saw the soft in soft power

For real. I think about this tech by thinking of it in terms of ST:TNG computers. Like, we already know what its end state should look like, if in a simplified way. It’s when people want to offload to it, and/or blame it for, significant decisions of real-life value and purpose that causes problems.

Pokopia screenshot - Stephanie’s Ditto wears Team Rocket garb and takes a gurning selfie while Snorlax and Tyranitar are trapped in a pink hut that’s too small for them. With no hope of escape and oxygen depleting fast, the two are locked in a twee sarcophagus of their own improbable making. Not only must we wait for them to suffocate and/or starve, they’ll have to reach a sufficient enough state of decomposition to facilitate their macabre removal. I could just punch out the wall temporarily for an easy fix, but then how would anybody learn? I only just cleaned the house yesterday and now it’ll take weeks to shovel out the inevitable sludge heap of flesh and feces. Hopefully it can be used in crafting. Can you believe my posts are free?

Booted up Pokopia to find that these two doofuses managed to squeeze their way into my house and got properly wedged. Now it’s just a matter of waiting to see which one kills, fucks, and eats the other first.

Smart money’s on Snorlax, but Tyranitar’s almost certainly taking a limb or two.

Also, I think broader institutional abuse feeds off family exceptionalism. Letting family problems go unaddressed can lead to acceptance of worse things from forces outside it. As I think we’re all seeing now.

Deromanticizing family is important, even if there’s love. My family was very much IMO net positive, but it really sucked to not be able to talk about certain family things for years to maintain illusions. We could have learned so much and been better off if we had just been more open about things.

Arguments about the imperfect ability of language and art to honestly and accurately represent a perspective or reality, and arguments about the limitations and possible harms of art and language vs. their value, have never ended. They’re not stupid. They’re just, as has been pointed out, not new.

Little Shop of Horrors

Morality is a Long Game - emptywheel Remembering Jesse Jackson as a Kind Man As you doubtless know now, Jesse Jackson has left us to make our way without him. People have been speaking of the broad sweep of Jackson’s life, how he trailblazed for the rights of many marginalized. That he gave speeches for years which inspired the Democrats, and America, […]

We have lost Jesse Jackson. I briefly knew him, and he.This is about him spending his time with me, when I was a child. It's personal, adorable, and most of all, humane. I have adored him ever since that day. https://emptywheel.net/morality-is-a-long-game/

Wondering about the details of banning religious education.

Dang, he’s positively flirty in this one

It’s not really being sold to *us* at all though. For most of us, like it or not, it just shows up, and so the “selling” comes across more as “stepmommy lives with us now, isn’t she great kids?”

Can we talk about how batshit crazy it was for Trump to post that China was going to permanently cancel the Stanley Cup if Canada signs a trade deal with them, or do we just assume at this point that he’s completely psychotic?

I do love how this scene appeals to all the audiences: savvy people get the ridiculousness, SOB-type chuds can tell themselves that the joke is that he actually killed them and should have but Miller just can’t write that, and people who want to can keep their idealized Batman

it’s more that such scenarios bug me personally and I think they’re often misused than that I think they’re inherently invalid

I agree we shouldn’t compromise art to serve the LCD and power fantasies are fine in service of ideals. It’s just that when I see dirty harry stuff now, I think about people I know who do really believe “no this guy assures us he only drones evil, it’s ok” I know that’s not the art’s intent or fault

Except, like, Elon Musk on a bender, but I get that doesn’t count

I’m not against doing good in foreign interventions, I’m just really suspect of the Dirty Harry fantasy that we are able to shoot out the terrorists from behind the kids, when we do often kill a bunch of kids because not also shooting them is hard

So, save/help people, but understand the real risks

my entire life i wanted a battle between good and evil and to have everyone see that i and my ideological compatriots are on the side of righteousness in an eternal struggle. i hate it. i want to stop with the world where my president is like near-verbatim “you puny rebels can never defeat my power”

I like the point, a sense of humor plus actual values is good art, but I mean Iron Man did have the bit where the titular character perfectly military-precision-kills a crowd of terrorist foreigners out from behind the women and children they were holding hostage, so, I think that part didn’t help

america could be such a cool fucking place if we’d just let it be

And pleasure

No When You Wish Upon a Star?

Like, math isn’t magic, but rocketry is. Not the craft of rocketry, but the actual rocket, which could not exist without math. And language. And a desire to fly.

My kid is a pretty good linguist and while I can’t speak for her, I think that she would say something like, whatever magic is in language is inseparable from people having experiences of the world.

Zero snark in asking: do you think they’ll actually vote Democratic?

Pretty disappointing. I honestly thought we’d learned better. Then again, of the people my age in my family, we’re split 50/50, so I guess I have no reason to be surprised.

trump getting his feelings hurt by european leaders is the culmination of this new type of guy that emerged in the last decade or so: guy who goes out of his way to be a huge asshole who then gets really offended when the people he's being an asshole to don't like him

That one also took me years to learn.

Dang the jeopardy guy is based

Who’s booking the Venezuela Comedy Festival?